Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, when we look at the processing of the applications, we can see the cases that are still pending—because of medicals, or where there needs to be more information about the relationship—are a very real concern. When you look at the overall number that we have, we believe

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairperson, we're constantly processing, and of course it's very advantageous for the department to process in a steady way as the year progresses. Certainly, as we're able to clear up those older cases, which is very much our desire, we do so, but if we can't clear them up,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Just following up on the ADM's answer, when we take the applications, we take the oldest applications first, but it then depends on client compliance. For example, on some of the applications there are issues with medical furtherances. Of the fewer than 10,000 applications, which

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Certainly, Madam Vice-Chair, monitoring the error rate is something that we do very regularly, because the error rate can be indicative of a number of things. One is that sometimes it can be that our kits or application forms are not clear. As Ms. Lattimore has mentioned, in some

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Madam Vice-Chair, I would add to Mr. Orr's comments that we certainly monitor the progress of applications. Now, certainly, a case may be furthered for security or for medical review or for the need for more information. Using the global case management system, we're able to view

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Madam Vice-Chair, yes, there is work that the department has undertaken to improve parent and grandparent processing. An example of that is, in addition to centralized intake which we have for parent and grandparent cases, we've also implemented risk triage so that we see from th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Madam Vice-Chair, yes, we have very strict performance management criteria to which all employees have to adhere. We also regularly conduct quality assurance exercises to make sure that the decision-making is of high quality.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, the average time which a case takes to be processed depends on a number of factors. One, it depends on the levels space. The government sets the levels space in a particular category every year, and then the department processes cases in accordance with that. It wou

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In a case like that, the applicant can apply for reconsideration. Without talking about a specific case, if there was an error made by officials, the matter would be corrected.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, the individual would write to us, and that's not an unusual occurrence. If somebody has a matter that requires reconsideration, the person requests reconsideration.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I couldn't provide you with statistics on how often that happens, but it does occur.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I wouldn't call it an appeal. It's called reconsideration. Many people are represented, either by an authorized representative or by lawyers, and they're certainly aware of that process. I'm not just speaking about family class.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, the department is examining options to see how we can better deal with this great intake in a very short period of time, but we do apply the first-in, first-out principle. We're literally counting the applications as they come in. Part of our challenge is to try to fin

Citizenship and Immigration committee  When we're looking at the parents and grandparents, and when the cap opens at the beginning of January, what happens is we receive tens of thousands of applications within the first few days, and the office in Mississauga has to very quickly do a completeness check. Within a few

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That is provided through the client feedback mechanism. It's a way that all our clients can provide feedback, whether positive or negative. That feedback is reviewed centrally, and then we look to adjust our procedures and our training if necessary.